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Discussion on: How is the global software dev ecosystem changing with remote work becoming more mainstream?

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cubiclebuddha profile image
Cubicle Buddha • Edited

I’ve seen an unfortunate anti-pattern develop which is the “remote company that actually has a headquarters where most of the devs work.” In other words, I find “mixed remote” companies to have poor communication. I find that all remote companies make sure to develop each person’s skill set in remote coworking (and let’s be honest— working remotely takes a lot of skills). And I’ve found that “100% co-located” companies have high communication too. It’s when you mix the two cultures you get bad scenarios like “oh we forgot to open the conference call so Beth can join remotely.” “Nah, it’s too late. We can catch her up later.” Which totally sucks. Communication skills are as important as technical skills.

Point being, I think there will be a lot of important learnings and retrospectives coming out in the near future about how to best organize a company.

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philnash profile image
Phil Nash

Surely that shift from 100% colocated to more companies offering remote work necessitates the step you go through where teams who are used to being in the same building forget to or work poorly with their remote team-mates. There's a learning process to go through that will ultimately produce a better company, but you can't expect it to be smooth sailing from the start. The important thing in this situation is that the companies that are going remote keep working hard to make their remote employees part of the company until it becomes as natural as a company that was started fully remote.